Happy 115th birthday to my mum's mum for today... strange how you think of these things..
What a day, I am exhausted tired... We went for breakfast in Nelson, found a lovely place called the Panama Cafe and they did the best poached eggs, and coffee - going back tomorrow.
Off to meet with the Abel Tasman Eco Tour team again (
www.abeltasmanecotour.co.nz) found the address and met our tour guide for the day Fay. Packed on the bus and headed to pickup 3 more (only 2 chaps as the lady was unwell) a Kiwi travel guide (Andrew) and his client (Phillip) an American working at Aramco Dhahran (where we were for 5 years) in Saudi, such a small world.
Straight to the Cave system, and met our guide there and underground we went, photo's to follow when I process them. It was breath taking, and Bert hates small places but loved this. Just us 6 wandering around and looking and hearing the stories. Philip (USA) was a geologist so contributed information also.... very interesting. We were underground for about 1 hour or more and then had morning tea at the tables in the Cave Shop.
We did about 3-4 bush walks of 10-20 minutes duration into some of the most beautiful forests and river areas. Fay told us a story about one of water pools being a "Good Will Pool" and the Maori believe that you can put a special item in the pool and it will bring you good luck, so Fay took my memory necklace down and put it in for me.. That was very kind of her and meant a lot to me.
Lunch at a lovely camping ground, in the rain!! Today was our first overcast and rainy day but it didn't get in our way, rain jackets on and out we went. It never poured, just continuously sprinkled.
We were gone from 9am to 4:45pm and had a great time again...
Fish and chips for tea! The hotel smoke alarm went off, the hotel manager rang and said we could have a wine or beer from the fridge (for free) due to the inconvenience.
We moved tomorrow to Hanmer Springs via the mountain Lewis Pass... Can't wait to get into those snow capped mountains and see what we can find.
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| Boat tour (yesterday) rock formations, note the holes..... |
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| A lovely little island (Boat Tour) |
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| Bert on his way down the "morning tea venue" beach.. |
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Lovely beach, looks like no one had been there all day,
no foot prints at all. Boat Tour day |
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| Driving Tour day (Today) the wonderful caves.. |
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| More caves (Bus tour day) |
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| Native fuchsia flower - bus tour day, so delicate. |
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| Lunch grounds, we walked up from here to the wishing pool. |
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| Beautiful old tree roots (Wishing Pool) Bus tour day |
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| Fay with my memory necklace, putting it in the wishing pool |
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| Last beach of the day, the wonderful colours of the sands at very low tide. |
